These easy 3 ingredient dinner recipes will make it easy for you to make cheap and delicious meals your family will love without spending a lot of time in the kitchen!
Easy 3 Ingredient Dinner Recipes – Delicious Meals Fast!
This post is dedicated to my friend and neighbor Katie. She came over and we were talking and she said “I need some super easy 3 ingredient or less recipes for dinner”. As I was telling her about a couple of these recipes she had no idea these could be made and so easy too! She grew up with a mom who never cooked so she didn’t learn how to cook either and now would like to learn. If you are new to cooking at home try some of these recipes to get you started and get a good cookbook to help you along the way. Even if you are an old pro try some for those days when you just need something quick and easy!
Easy Creamy Chicken
4 boneless chicken breasts
1 can cream soup (cream of chicken, cream of mushroom or cream of celery)
Arrange chicken breasts in a baking pan. Pour soup over chicken and cover with foil. Bake at 275° for 1½ to 2 hours until the chicken is cooked through. Serve over rice and or cooked vegetables.
You can also make this easy dinner recipe in the crockpot. Just dump everything in and cook for 4-6 hours on low.
3 Ingredient Salsa Chicken
6 chicken breasts, boneless, skinless OR 6-8 chicken pieces
2 cups salsa
1 cup shredded cheese (Cheddar or Mexican Blend)
Place the chicken in a crockpot and pour the salsa on top. Cook for 1 1/2 – 2 hours on high. Place cheese on top and let it melt during the last 10-15 minutes.
3 Ingredient Sweet Pork Chops Or Ribs
4 pork chops (They can still be frozen.) OR 2-3 lbs. pork ribs
12 oz. bottle chili sauce
1 cup grape jelly
Grease the crockpot with oil cooking spray. Place the pork chops in the crockpot. In a bowl, mix the chili sauce and grape jelly. Pour the mixture on the pork chops. Cook on low for 6-8 hours (8 hours if frozen). These pork chops or ribs will fall of the bone! Super Yummy!
3 Ingredient Ritz Chicken
1 lb. chicken (boneless skinless), cut into strips
1/2 bottle of ranch dressing
1 sleeve of Ritz Crackers, crushed (generic is fine)
salt and pepper
Place the ranch dressing and the Ritz crackers in separate bowls. Grease a 9×13 inch pan. Salt and pepper the chicken. Dip the chicken in ranch dressing and then dip in the crackers. Place in the pan and bake at 350 degrees for 25-35 minutes.
3 Ingredient Creamy Chicken Tacos
1 can Rotel tomatoes OR 1 cup salsa
4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1/2 bar cream cheese ( 4 oz.)
Place the chicken and Rotel or salsa into a greased crockpot. Cook on low for 6-8 hours.
30 minutes before serving, place cream cheese on top. No need to stir. Finish cooking 30 minutes.
When ready to serve, stir and break up chicken. Serve with tortillas.
3 Ingredient Chicken Cacciatore
4 boneless skinless chicken breasts or 4-8 chicken pieces
1 bottle spaghetti sauce
2-3 cups vegetables like zucchini, mushrooms and onions
Grease the crockpot. Add the chicken and spaghetti sauce. Cook on low for 6-8 hours. One hour before serving, add vegetables and continue cooking. Serve over pasta.
3 Ingredient Beef Tacos
1 lb. ground beef
1 pkg. taco seasoning (or homemade)
1 can Rotel tomatoes and green chilis
Put everything into a greased crockpot and cook 5-7 hours on low. Stir every few hours to break up beef. (This can be done beforehand if you are gone all day). Serve on taco shells.
3 Ingredient Barbecue Meatballs
25 frozen fully cooked meatballs ( half 32 oz. bag)
1 cup grape jelly
1 cup barbecue sauce
Combine sauces in your crock-pot and stir until combined. Add meatballs and stir until they are coated with the sauce. Cook on high for 3 hours. Serve over rice.
3 Ingredient Sausage Biscuits and Gravy
1 lb. breakfast sausage
2 cans refrigerator biscuits (10 to a can, so 20 total)
2 cans cream of mushroom soup
Brown and drain the sausage. Place 1 can of biscuits in the bottom of a greased slow cooker. Top with half of the brown sausage and then 1 can of cream of mushroom soup. Repeat the layers. Cook 4 hours on low.
3 Ingredient Dr. Pepper Pork
1 can Dr. Pepper
1 packet onion soup mix (or homemade)
2-3 lbs. pork roast
Grease crockpot and place pork roast in the crockpot. Sprinkle pork with onion soup mix. Pour the Dr. Pepper over the pork until it is almost covered in the crockpot. Cook on high for 4-5 hours.
Drain juice and shred. Serve on buns with BBQ sauce, if desired.
Ranch Chicken and Potatoes
4 skinless boneless chicken breast
2 cups ranch dressing
4 large potatoes, cubed
paprika (optional)
Put chicken on the bottom of a crockpot. Add potatoes, cover in ranch and sprinkle with paprika, if desired. Cook 4-5 hours on low.
If you like firm potatoes, cook for less time and if you like soft potatoes, cook longer.
For lots more easy and delicious dinner recipes, check out our cookbook!
Click here to get our Dining On A Dime Cookbooks, with tasty recipes and great tips to make your life easier and save you money!
For the creamy chicken recipe – do you add any water to the can of cream of soup when you make recipe in the crock pot?
No you don’t need too.
Hi Jill: don’t know if you can get this where you are, but sometimes I used cream of onion soup. it comes out pretty tasty.
Hi Donna yes I can get this. As a matter of fact I am the one who usually deals with all of these questions and they come straight to me. Using the onion soup on this I imagine would taste really good too so thanks for the idea.
These recipies are so easy and they look scrumptious, I will be trying all of them–Thank you so much
The pork chop or ribs recipe calls for 12 bottle chili. Twelve??? You mean 1/2 as in one half, I hope or this is made for people used to eating food not made on this planet because I would be ejected from the planet by eating this food. LOL
Thanks for the heads up Denis. It is suppose to be 12 oz. bottle.
Whats the best type of potato to use? every time ive done something similar to this in the past, my potatoes never cook all the way through :(
I don’t think it makes any difference what kind you use. You may need to just cook it a little longer because crock pots cook at so many different temperatures that yours may just not be hot enough so needs longer cooking. Be sure to cube the potatoes too and if all of these fail then nuke the potatoes for a minute or two before putting them in the crock pot.
For the Ritz chicken if you don’t like Ranch dressing what other dressing would you recommend?
You could mix some mayo with parmesan cheese.
I don’t like ranch either and wonder if you could substitute another dressing?
You could use another creamy type of dressing although you wouldn’t have the same flavor because of the spices that are used in the ranch dressing
Creamy Italian would work!
For the beef taco- is there a skillet version for that?
Yes all you need to do is fry the ground beef, drain and add rest (drain tomatoes and chilies). You might simmer for about 5-10 mins in the frying pan or while you are getting other things for the meal ready. I never use a crock pot for this.
Would the same skillet version apply for the chicken tacos?
Yes. A crock pot is nothing more that a pan that you just cook on low with. You can make the same things in the oven or on the stove as in a crock pot. I don’t even own a crock pot now. The low temp on a crock pot is the same as something cooked at 250 in the oven in a pan, the high temp is the same as 350 degrees in the oven. In a skillet just turn it down to very low or simmer.
Hi, for the 3 ingredient ranch chicken and potatoes it says 2 cups ranch so I’m guessing it is the regular ranch and not the dry mix?
Yes it is the regular.
Thank you for helping my family with your website. Told my husband and he told me to follow your grocery list for the planned meals! Oh, I tried your meatloaf, it was outstanding. And was complemented! Credit goes to y’all.
Thank so much Melissa and tell your husband thank you too. :) :)
These recipes look great do you have nutrition facts on them we are trying to eat low carb so I was just wondering ,do you have any ideas how I can use some or all your recipes while I am doing low carb and I have a friend that has diabetes can you help.
No Cheri I am afraid we don’t have nutrition facts on our recipes. We have thousands of them there is no way time wise to do that and most of ours are old family recipes. We also so at this point in time have no less than about 50 different special diets that people are all on so to try to adapt all the recipes for each diet would take months plus diets tend to change every 10 yrs or so but we have had many many people who have special diets that use our book and such because they say that the recipes are so simple and easy that it is easy to adapt them to their special recipes.
Cheri you can place the recipe into Lose it and it will give you the calorie plus information.
Great recipes, now that we are doing the social distancing thing. I run into the store, grab stuff, and leave as soon as possible.
On the sweet pork chops it calls for a 12 oz bottle of chili sauce? Bottle? So hot sauce? But says sweet not spicy! So, Hotdog sauce? Please tell me what you have used.
Yes a bottle of chili sauce. It’s usually near the ketchup in a grocery store. Hot sauce is different. It’s usually made from vinegar, chiles and oil. Chili sauce is made from tomato sauce, vinegar, sugar, and seasonings. There’s not much spice to it. The sweetness comes from the grape jelly.
This has totally helped me save money and time in the kitchen. We now have super delicious that cost a fraction of what we spent before. Thanks for the yummy recipes.
You are welcome Joan and so glad these worked out for you